Month: September 2014

I heard about a study recently that said low-carb diets worked better than low-fat diets. My question is, how “low” is low-carb?

You’re likely talking about a study published in early September in the Annals of Internal Medicine called “Effects of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets: A Randomized Trial.”

The authors’ conclusion — that a low-carbohydrate diet was more effective for weight loss and heart health — got a lot of press. But other experts raised their eyebrows after reading the whole study.

For the study, researchers followed 119 participants for a year and found those placed on a low-carbohydrate diet lost an average of 12 pounds, compared with an average of just 4 pounds for those on a low-fat diet.

For this study, “low-carb” meant less than 40 grams of carbohydrates daily. If you’ve ever counted carbs, you know that’s not a heckuva lot. A cup of milk has 13 grams of carbohydrates. A medium apple, 25 grams. And that’s not even counting bread or pasta. You get the point: Critics of low-carb diets suggest that most people find them too restrictive to adhere to for long, and they suspect any weight loss associated with them is essentially due to overall calorie restriction.

This study seems to support those points: Nearly all of the weight loss enjoyed by the low-carb group occurred in the first three months, where the group also reported consuming 190 fewer calories a day than those on the low-fat diet.

Additionally, the low-carb participants reported a higher consumption of carbs than they were actually supposed to eat: about 80 grams daily at first, and up to 112 grams daily by year’s end.

That said, there remains serious discussion about standard dietary advice that suggests a hefty portion of the diet — 45-65 percent of calories — should come from carbohydrates.

Some evidence suggests that moderately restricting carbohydrates to 25 to 45 percent of calories a day (that would be equal to 125-225 grams on a 2,000 calorie per day diet) and at the same time boosting protein and healthy fats could help weight loss by reducing hunger pangs. But most dietitians believe that very low-carbohydrate diets — those that restrict carbs to less than 50 grams a day, or 5-15 percent of calories, aren’t feasible for most of us.

Most dietitians agree that a healthful diet can take many forms, as long as it includes a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and healthy fats, and restricts added sugars. The key is to find something you can live with for the long term.

Chow Line is a service of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and its outreach and research arms, Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Send questions to Chow Line, c/o Martha Filipic, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH, 43210-1043, or filipic.3@osu.edu

Editor: This column was reviewed by Bridgette Kidd, Healthy People program specialist for Ohio State University Extension, the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

Squashes are members of the gourd family, which also includes watermelons, cucumbers, muskmelon, pumpkins, and gourds. Squash was a common food of Native Americans. Archeological research indicates findings of rind and seed in cliff dwellings dated around 1500 BC. The blossom of the squash was the Hopi emblem of fertility. All through writings of the earliest explorers and colonists there are references to squash.

Pumpkin had its original habitat in South America. The names pumpkin and squash, especially in the United States, are applied inconsistently to certain varieties of both. Squash is available from July through September. October is the big pumpkin month, although a few are available in September and November.

Selection Tips
• Should be heavy for its size, indicating more edible flesh. Shell should have no cracks, bruises, or decay and should be firm.
• Seeds and rind are not eaten.
• Pumpkin should be fully ripe with firm rinds, bright orange color, and fairly heavy weight.

For information on squash and pumpkin varieties available in Ohio, contact your county Extension educator, Agriculture or Horticulture.

Storage
• Summer Squash—Best when eaten soon after purchase. To store, refrigerate and use in 3 to 5 days.
• Winter Squash—Store whole in a cool (50 to 60 degrees F) dry area. Will keep several months if mature and stem is still attached.

Nutrition
The “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” recommend that adults need 2–2½ cups of a variety of vegetables daily. Squash and pumpkin are great choices to meet this requirement. They contain antioxidants, Vitamins A and C, some B vitamins, iron, calcium, and fiber. Pumpkin and winter squash varieties are especially good sources of vitamin A. Calories per cupserving: summer squash—15, winter squash—65, pumpkin—40.

Safe Handling
Clean surfaces, utensils, and hands after touching raw meat and poultry and before you use them on fresh produce. To remove dirt, bacteria, and possible pesticide residue, wash vegetables thoroughly in cold water. Do not use soap, dish detergent, or bleach when washing since these household products are not approved for human consumption. Dry completely before storage, especially if refrigerated, to discourage growth of bacteria and mold. We recommend that you only prepare the amount of fresh squash or pumpkin that you plan to use for a recipe or for a meal. Extra squash or pumpkin can be frozen.

Serve Summer Squash Creatively
• Slice or dice and cook in a small amount of water or fry in oil, season to taste.
• Dip in flour or egg and crumbs; fry in oil.
• Good combined with tomatoes.
• Season with basil, marjoram, oregano, or rosemary. Sprinkle with Parmesan or mozzarella cheese. Bake, mash, or fry—top with cheese or chive-parsley butter.

Serve Pumpkin and Winter Squash Creatively
• To bake, cut in half or pieces. Remove seeds and stringy parts. Place cut sides down in baking dish; add 1/4 inch water. Bake until tender.
• When nearly done, turn right side up and season with margarine, brown sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, or try stuffing with sausage, apples, and cinnamon.
• To boil, cut up or cook whole in salted water; then scrape out of shell and use as a puree in pies, breads, and casseroles.
• Remove from rind and mash with cream, nutmeg, brown sugar, crumbled crisply fried bacon, candied ginger, and grated orange peel or orange juice.

Written by Barbara A. Brahm, Extension Educator, Family and Consumer Sciences.
Reviewed by Lydia Medeiros, Ph.D., R.D., Extension Specialist, Ohio State University Extension.

Apples are a versatile and appealing fruit of widespread popularity. Many enjoy growing their own apples in backyard planting, while other prefer to purchase quality apples grown by professional fruit growers. Whether you plan to grow your own apples or purchase them from someone else, it is desirable to have information descriptive of the various types enjoying popularity today. Such information can be used to make important decisions concerning the type of trees to buy for planting or fruit to purchase for family use.

Ohio’s Leading Apple Varieties

The trend today is toward red apples, especially when the apples are grown for sale to others through commercial marketing channels. In cases where the apples are being grown primarily for home use, yellow apples such as yellow Transparent, Lodi and Grimes Golden may be used. Golden Delicious, the most popular yellow variety today, in not only well suited to the home fruit planting, but to commercial as well. The popular red varieties of apples at the present time in order of number of trees in the state are Red Delicious, Rome Beauty, Jonathan, Stayman and McIntosh. Red apples becoming increasingly popular as people try them and like them are the varieties Franklin and Melrose.

Franklin is a cross between McIntosh and Delicious and has a fine flavor and aroma. Harvest is normally during late September. Melrose is a cross between Jonathan and Delicious. The fruits are large with good flavor and texture. They ripen around the middle of October. Other newer apples growers may want to try are Ruby, Holiday and the various strains of Red Delicious. Also worth trying are Tydeman’s Red, Paula Red, Prima, Priscilla, Surprize (yellow) and Empire. At present, there is a trend to plant trees on dwarfing rootstock, both in commercial orchards and in backyard planting. By planting small trees, the home gardener can get several trees of different cultivars (varieties) in the same space that one or two large trees would require.

Most of the popular varieties, including those mentioned above, are now available on dwarf and semi-dwarf rootstocks. Dwarf trees, normally do not get much over 10 to 12 feet tall at maturity, while semi-dwarf trees may grow to be 15 to 18 feet tall. Dwarf trees begin to bear earlier than the larger, standard trees. Dwarfing does not affect fruit size or quality.

Apples for Specific Use

Apples are a favorite fruit of many people for eating out of hand or in fresh salads. The fruit of many apple varieties are also excellent for making a wide variety of cooked products. Apples best suited to particular uses are indicated below.

Fresh

McIntosh

Cortland

Jonathan

Red Delicious

Golden Delicious

Stayman Winesap

Melrose

Franklin

Prima

Applesauce

Golden Delicious

Melrose

Yellow Transparent

McIntosh

Cortland

Jonathan

Grimes Golden

Stayman Winesap

Rome Beauty

Lodi

Pies

Cortland

Jonathan

Grimes Golden

Melrose

Rome Beauty

Yellow Transparent

McIntosh

Golden Delicious

Stayman Winesap

Lodi

Baking

Jonathan

Golden Delicious

Stayman Winesap

Rome Beauty

McIntosh

Cortland

Grimes Golden

Melrose

Stayman Winesap

Freezing for Slicing

Jonathan

Golden Delicious

Stayman Winesap

Red Delicious

Grimes Golden

McIntosh

Freezing for Sauce

Yellow Transparent

Wealthy

Cortland

McIntosh

Freezing for Baking

Baldwin

Northern Spy

Cider

The best cider is usually made from a blend of different varieties of apples. Varieties are grouped into four groups according to their suitability as cider material.

Sweet Subacid*

Rome Beauty

Delicious

Grimes Golden

Cortland

Astringent (Crab apples)

Florence Hibernal

Red Siberian

Transcendent

Martha

Aromatic

Red Delicious

Golden Delicious

McIntosh

Mildly Acid to Slightly Tart

Stayman Winesap

Jonathan

General Use

Jonathan

Golden Delicious

Stayman Winesap

Melrose

* Usually furnish the highest percentage of total stock used for cider.

Written by Richard Funt, Professor Emeritus, Horticulture and Crop Science, College or Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.
Originally prepared by James D. Utzinger, Extension Horticulture, The Ohio State University.

This year we have an overabundance of green beans from our garden. If we eat them with rice, will they make a complete protein like other beans do?

Green beans aren’t really “beans,” at least according to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. They’re great vegetables, though.

The primary difference is in protein content. A cup of green beans contains just 2 grams of protein, whereas a cup of, say, black beans contains 15 grams of protein. Green beans are actually harvested before the bean in the pod has fully matured — that’s why they don’t have as much protein as black beans, kidney beans or other types of dry beans.

Dry beans are a unique food in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They can be counted as vegetables or as proteins, and, paired with grains such as rice, provide all of the necessary amino acids for a complete protein. Green beans aren’t in the same category, but still are a perfectly fine food to include in the diet.

A cup of green beans has just 35 calories, and is a very good source of fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, iron and manganese.

An easy way to preserve your bounty is to freeze green beans. Ohio State University Extension recently developed a five-minute video showing how to properly prepare fresh green beans for freezing. It’s online atgo.osu.edu/greenbnpreserv.

One step not to skip is blanching. Although blanching causes some nutrient loss, especially of vitamin C, it prevents loss of other nutrients such as carotenoids.

After washing and trimming green beans, blanching the beans in boiling water for 3 minutes or steaming them for 5 minutes will not only eliminate any surface microorganisms, but will retard enzymes that otherwise would allow the vegetables to continue ripening, thus losing flavor, texture, color or nutrients. After blanching, cool the green beans rapidly in cold water or ice water to immediately stop the cooking process for the highest quality frozen green beans. For more information on freezing green beans and other vegetables, see the OSU Extension fact sheet Freezing Vegetables, at go.osu.edu/frzvegpdf.

For information on green bean nutrition and some healthy recipes, OSU Extension offers two additional resources:

• Maximize Your Nutrients from Green Beans and Pea Pods, online at Extension’s Farm to Health Series website at go.osu.edu/grnbnnutrpdf.

Chow Line is a service of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and its outreach and research arms, Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Send questions to Chow Line, c/o Martha Filipic, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH, 43210-1043, or filipic.3@osu.edu.

Editor: This column was reviewed by Dan Remley, field specialist in Food, Nutrition and Wellness for Ohio State University Extension, the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

Actually, the recommendations for fruits and vegetables vary widely. They depend on children’s daily calorie needs, which relate to their age and activity level. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans advises that:

Children ages 2 to 5 should eat 1 to 1.5 cups of fruit and 1 to 2 cups of vegetables a day.

Children ages 6 to 11 should eat 1 to 2 cups of fruit and 1.5 to 3 cups of vegetables a day.

Children and teens ages 12 to 19 should eat 1.5 to 2.5 cups of fruit and 2 to 4 cups of vegetables a day.

For details on these recommendations, including amounts of specific types of vegetables and methods to prepare fruits and vegetables, see appendices 6 and 7 in the Dietary Guidelines, online as a PDF atbit.ly/2010dietary.

As you might suspect, most kids don’t eat enough produce. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that while children have increased their overall fruit intake since 2003, most — 6 in 10 — are still not eating enough fruit. What’s worse, 9 in 10 kids don’t meet the recommendations for vegetable consumption.

One promising sign: The message to choose whole fruits over fruit juice appears to be getting through. Fruit juice is a concentrated source of calories and doesn’t have the fiber or, sometimes, some of the nutrients that whole fruit provides. The CDC report found that fruit juice intake significantly decreased, while whole fruit consumption increased significantly — more than making up for the reduction in juice intake.

The findings about vegetables were not as positive. Not only was there no increase in vegetable consumption over the study period, 2003 to 2010, but 30 percent of the vegetables kids consumed were white potatoes, often eaten as less-healthful fried potatoes or even potato chips.

To help kids and teens eat more fruits and vegetables, parents can:

Eat fruit and vegetables with your children. Modeling good behavior and enjoying a healthful snack with your kids is always helpful.

Make sure a wide variety of fruits and vegetables are available and in eyesight. Cut up and prepare produce ahead of time, and keep it at the front of the refrigerator. Make it easier to reach for an apple or carrot sticks than it is to grab some chips or cookies.

Include children when shopping for, growing, and preparing fruit and vegetables.

Encourage children to eat a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. Offer options — “Would you like this or that?” — to get kids to try new fruits and vegetables. Don’t just stick with favorites all the time.

Chow Line is a service of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and its outreach and research arms, Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Send questions to Chow Line, c/o Martha Filipic, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH, 43210-1043, or filipic.3@osu.edu.

Editor: This column was reviewed by Carolyn Gunther, nutrition specialist for Ohio State University Extension, the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

We had a cookout at my sister’s house last weekend and I noticed she rinsed off her chicken in the sink before preparing it for cooking. Are we supposed to do that?

In a word, no. In three words, no, no, no!

Your sister may be confusing food safety guidelines for poultry with those for produce. Fresh fruits and vegetables should be rinsed under running water before cutting into or consuming them. But poultry really shouldn’t be.

Raw poultry is likely to harbor bacteria that can cause foodborne illness, such as Campylobacter and Salmonella. A well-publicized study by Consumer Reports earlier this year found 97 percent of the 316 chicken breasts tested were contaminated with bacteria that could make you sick.

The thing is, cooking, not rinsing, is what destroys the bacteria. Poultry should be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees F to be safe. (Always use a meat thermometer to be sure.)

So, your sister might argue, why not rinse it beforehand? Isn’t that just an extra measure of safety? The answer is: Nope.

The reason is twofold, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. First, some bacteria commonly on the surface of meat and poultry are so tightly attached that no amount of rinsing will ever get them off. Second, and even more important, other types of bacteria are easily washed off — and when you put that raw chicken under the tap, the water is likely to splash all over the sink, the nearby countertop — and on you. And that can cause cross-contamination.

Cross-contamination is one of the primary causes of foodborne illness. Bacteria on your hands and on food-preparation surfaces can contaminate food that otherwise would have been just fine. It’s easy to imagine that, once cooked and relieved of the nasty bacteria, that perfectly fine chicken is placed on a platter that your sister had placed near the sink where she washed the chicken. The platter may look clean, but it could hold bacteria that would re-contaminate the chicken. The bacteria could also splash on her arms, clothing and other surfaces. Rinsing poultry and other raw meat is not only unnecessary, it’s not worth the risk.

You might send your sister a link to New Mexico State University’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences “Don’t Wash Your Chicken!” website, at aces.nmsu.edu/dontwashyourchicken/. It includes several videos and cooking demonstrations repeating the same message: Don’t. Wash. Chicken.

Chow Line is a service of Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and its outreach and research arms, Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. Send questions to Chow Line, c/o Martha Filipic, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, OH, 43210-1043, or filipic.3@osu.edu.

Editor: This column was reviewed by Linnette Goard, field specialist in Food Safety, Selection and Management for Ohio State University Extension, the outreach arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

Meta

The comment function is moderated and intended for posts related to the subject matter of the blog post. Comments not in alignment with blog subject matter may not be posted.

If you have trouble accessing this page and need to request an alternate format, contact u@osu.edu

The content of this site is published by the site owner(s) and is not a statement of advice, opinion, or information pertaining to The Ohio State University. Neither text, nor links to other websites, is reviewed or endorsed by The Ohio State University.